She smiled into his skin.“For what?”
“For being the best destiny a guy could ever hope for.For believing in me when I couldn’t.”
Fern closed her eyes, letting the quiet fill every aching corner inside her.“We’ll believe together,” she murmured.
Outside, the world kept spinning.Inside, they needed nothing but this.
Nothing but each other.
15
Some days, Cody woke up and still felt the itch to run.
Old habits died hard, and the habit of bolting—of thinking the only way to protect people was to vanish—had a hold on him so deep he sometimes wondered if it was in his bones.
But he stayed.
He was learning that staying took a different kind of courage.
He sat down with Karen and Finn in early July, palms damp, heart thumping so hard he could barely hear himself.
“I don’t know what my life is going to look like,” he said quietly.“But as long as there’s work I can do, I’m willing to be here for you.”
He half-expected them to thank him for his honesty and start drawing up a plan to transition him out.
Instead, Karen smiled.Not kindly, but the way she smiled when she was about to hand someone their ass in a meeting.Finn just sat there, arms folded, eyes steady.
“Good,” Karen said.“Because you’re not going anywhere.”
And just like that, he wasn’t.
They upgraded him from his little cabin to a two-bedroom, told him any out-of-pocket medical expenses were covered by the ranch insurance, and reminded him that Red Boot had always been about family, not just payroll.
He’d gone home that day feeling lighter than he had in months.
Fern moved in the next week.
The Fields clan arrived in a convoy of trucks and SUVs, helping to haul in furniture, dishes, and Fern’s collection of watercolour supplies.
Sophie and Malachi presented them with a wicker basket containing fresh bread wrapped in linen and a tin of coarse salt.
“It’s a traditional blessing.May this house never know hunger, and may your life be full of flavour,” Sophie said, eyes suspiciously bright.
Fern sniffled.“We’re still going to come over to your house a lot,” she warned.
“Of course you will,” Malachi agreed.“But call first.You never know what your mother and I might be up to.”
Cody didn’t want to know why that made all the Fields girls snicker so hard.But he did appreciate how the cabin slowly and steadily became a home with Fern’s caring touch.
Some mornings, she left early to go work at the gallery, carrying her laptop bag slung over her shoulder.She’d started painting more seriously, too, and now a watercolour of the wild horses hung framed above their bed.
Cody spent his days working the trail ride schedule, tending fences, and figuring out, one step at a time, how to plan for a future he couldn’t fully see.
He took the medication he’d been prescribed.He listened to the tremor in his hand, tried not to hate it.
He tried to remember that even imperfect days were a gift.
On August 10th, he hosted Chance’s bachelor party out at the ranch.The sky had been threatening rain since dawn, and by early evening, clouds roiled low and dark across the prairie.But no one cared.
